


The Heavy Weight of Living

by Voidfish



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Mild Gore, Suicidal Thoughts, its small but be careful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 17:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13768677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voidfish/pseuds/Voidfish
Summary: Your name is Barry Bluejeans.You create the Hunger because you can.





	The Heavy Weight of Living

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [turn the lights off when you leave](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13487544) by [anonymousAlchemist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist). 



> This is inspired by AnonymousAlchemist's incredible Hunger!Barry fic Turn the Lights Off When You Leave and also by talk in the TAZ Writers Discord about the idea of Barry as the Hunger.
> 
> Title from Weight of Living Part 1 by Bastille
> 
> Warning for a small mention about suicidal ideation in the first section and very mild gore in the later sections. Please be careful.

Your name is Barry Bluejeans.

You create the Hunger because you can. It’s easy, when you think about it scientifically - combining bardic magic with the technicalities of necromancy, in a scientific sense. Combining dissatisfaction and the urge to be the stronger, to be the sun in the sky instead of the people getting burned. It’s all so horribly easy.

You create the Hunger because you have no other choice. It’s a losing battle from the beginning - you find yourself slipping, find yourself sitting for hours in front of empty coffee cups wondering whether the world is better with you living or dead. You don’t sleep, barely eat, don’t live, and you are consumed.

You create the Hunger because suddenly you can become the one consuming.

***

Lup is … radiant. She’s beautiful and deadly and she looks at them with a fierce eye for competition. You haven’t had competition in years.

Lup is patient in a way that you don’t understand. She listens through your stammer, not making fun of you for it, instead gently helping you to find the words you are missing. 

Lup is too good for you. She is like … like the sun, you guess. High in the sky, made of bright energy, impossible to look at directly and yet you can’t help but stare into her eyes and wonder if there’s a third option, one where you both can win. She’s like the sun because one day, millions of years from now, she will explode. You feel sad about that. It’s been a while since you felt anything.

***

Being in the Hunger is frantically searching for the only thing that can save you, devouring and tearing apart worlds in your desperation for the only thing that can fill the hole, only knowing that you are running a race you will never truly win.

Being in the Hunger is like being no one and everyone at once, a bleary confusion of unity and conformity. There is no man named Barry Bluejeans anymore. They are all Barry Bluejeans. They don’t think about this, they don’t wonder who is who anymore. Instead they search, and they starve or feast.

Being in the Hunger is being displaced from time, from the world, from what it means to be living and what being alive even was in the beginning.

***

Being in Parley is like breathing after having been drowning for hours, it’s like taking in the sweet air in your fragile lungs and slowly exhaling, feeling the movement of your body, the vibration of your vocal cords and the contraction of your diaphragm as you speak.

Being in Parley is like playing games as a child minutes before you must go home, knowing that any minute your fun will be over and you will be back to the menial, to the meaningless. Yet you can’t help but place another card down, move another pawn, tell another joke, because it’s thrilling to play the game, and even more thrilling to play when you know you’re not supposed to, when you know you can get in trouble.

Being in Parley is like being alive again, for just a few moments.

***

Lup leaving is being thrown back into the freezing cold water, being suffocated by tendrils, it’s like knowing for years that one day you will receive a guilty verdict but regardlessly moving onwards with no attention towards the inevitable.

Lup leaving is realizing you love her.

***

Starving is like being split apart over and over, every molecule shredded, only reformed to be deconstructed yet again.

Starving is like losing control of yourself - yourselves - no, them, you are losing control of them. Your name is Barry Bluejeans and you have created a monster that is finally, finally, dying, and there’s no saving yourself.

Starving is hoping that Lup is somewhere safe.

***

The last Parley is electricity, eyes watching and glaring in your direction.

 

The last Parely is seeing her face again, so beautiful and yet so scarred, so changed and yet the same. You know by the way she looks at you she sees the same, she sees the slits in your skin, the way it almost falls off the bone. Without the approval of the Hunger you are truly mostly dead, physically as well as mentally. It’s sad she sees you like this, but it’s time you stopped trying to fool her. You’re not like her - not beautiful, not whole, not deserving.

The last Parely is hints and whispers that turn your skin on fire, that burn your brain before you can speak much more than “break the bonds, Lup” because the Hunger is smart, the Hunger knows what you are doing, they are you after all, that’s right, you’re the Hunger, you’re the Hunger, you’re the Hunger -

The last Parley is far too short.

***

The fight is … fuzzy. You see it through a fog, as something moves your body for you, makes you watch as it attacks her.

The fight is screaming until your voice is hoarse while you are stuck inside your own head.

The fight is losing yourself, blending into one, before breaking out again to fight, over and over and over.

The fight is far too long, but it ends. 

***

The Conservatory that stands before you is immaculate, a violin and piano carefully placed in the area. You don’t know if you deserve this. You don’t know who has planned this out for you, but you are immensely grateful. You don’t know who the violin is for.

The Conservatory that stands before you is gorgeous when she walks in. The room changes, expands, and it becomes immaculate in her presence.

The Conservatory that stands before you highlights the way her heels hit the hardwood floor as she goes to stand near you. She speaks in a soft voice, but you don’t deserve the words. You listen anyway.

The Conservatory that stands before you disappears as you play your first note.

***

Waking up is hard.

Waking up is feeling every nerve in your body explode, feeling the death of a universe inside of you, feeling the ache of absolution, of cleansing.

Waking up is seeing Lup leaning in front of you, seeing her grin and mouth words you can’t hear because of the pressure in your head but you laugh anyways.

Waking up is reading her lips as she tells you, “Welcome to Earth.”

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is @infernaltwink, come scream with me!


End file.
